Queen of Sorcery

unable to take his eyes off Garion's face. Garion kept his expression as blank as possible. The fiery young Asturian seemed to be filled with doubts, and those doubts might keep him from plunging headlong into something disastrous. It wasn't much, Garion realized, but it was the best he could manage under the circumstances.
    "Come back soon, Belgarath," Reldegen said. "Sometime when you can stay longer. We're very isolated here, and I'd like to know what the rest of the world's doing. We'll sit by the fire and talk away a month or two.
    Mister Wolf nodded gravely. "Maybe when this business of mine is over, Reldegen." Then he turned his horse and led the way across the wide clearing that surrounded Reldegen's house and back once again into the gloomy forest.
    "The count's an unusual Arend," Silk said lightly as they rode along. "I think I actually detected an original thought or two in him last evening."
    "He's changed a great deal," Wolf agreed.
    "He sets a good table," Barak said. "I haven't felt this full since I left Val Alorn."
    "You should," Aunt Pol told him. "You ate the biggest part of one deer by yourself."
    "You're exaggerating, Polgara," Barak said.
    "But not by very much," Hettar observed in his quiet voice. Lelldorin had pulled his horse in beside Garion's, but he had not spoken. His face was as troubled as his cousin's had been. It was obvious that he wanted to say something and just as obvious that he didn't know how to begin.
    "Go ahead," Garion said quietly. "We're good enough friends that I'm not going to be upset if it doesn't come out exactly right."
    Lelldorin looked a little sheepish.
    "Am I really that obvious?"
    "Honest is a better word for it," Garion told him. "You've just never learned to hide your feelings, that's all."
    "Was it really true?" Lelldorin blurted. "I'm not doubting your word, but was there really a Murgo in Cherek plotting against King Anheg?"
    "Ask Silk," Garion suggested, "or Barak, or Hettar-any of them. We were all there."
    "Nachak isn't like that, though," Lelldorin said quickly, defensively.
    "Can you be sure?" Garion asked him. "The plan was his in the first place, wasn't it? How did you happen to meet him?"
    "We'd all gone down to the Great Fair, Torasin, me, several of the others. We bought some things from a Murgo merchant, and Tor made a few remarks about Mimbrates-you know how Tor is. The merchant said that he knew somebody we might be interested in meeting and he introduced us to Nachak. The more we talked with him, the more sympathetic he seemed to become to the way we felt."
    "Naturally."
    "He told us what the king is planning. You wouldn't believe it."
    "Probably not."
    Lelldorin gave him a quick, troubled look. "He's going to break up our estates and give them to landless Mimbrate nobles." He said it accusingly.
    "Did you verify that with anybody but Nachak?"
    "How could we? The Mimbrates wouldn't admit it if we confronted them with it, but it's the kind of thing Mimbrates would do."
    "So you've only got Nachak's word for it? How did this plan of yours come up?"
    "Nachak said that if he were an Asturian, he wouldn't let anybody take his land, but he said that it'd be too late to try to stop them when they came with knights and soldiers. He said that if he were doing it, he'd strike before they were ready and that he'd do it in such a way that the Mimbrates wouldn't know who'd done it. That's when he suggested the Tolnedran uniforms."
    "When did he start giving you money?"
    "I'm not sure. Tor handled that part of it."
    "Did he ever say why he was giving you money?"
    "He said it was out of friendship."
    "Didn't that seem a little odd?"
    "I'd give someone money out of friendship," Lelldorin protested.
    "You're an Asturian," Garion told him. "You'd give somebody your life out of friendship. Nachak's a Murgo, though, and I've never heard that they were all that generous. What it comes down to, then, is that a stranger tells you that the king's planning to take your land. Then he gives you a plan to kill the king and start a war with Tolnedra; and to make sure you succeed with his plan, he gives you money. Is that about it.
    Lelldorin nodded mutely, his eyes stricken.
    "Weren't any of you just the least bit suspicious?"
    Lelldorin seemed almost about to cry.
    "It's such a good plan," he burst out finally. "It couldn't help but succeed."
    "That's what makes it so dangerous," Garion replied.
    "Garion, what am I going to do?" Lelldorin's voice was anguished.
    "I don't